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African American poet, America’s violent racism, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (2018) by Terrance Hayes
My Poetry Corner July 2020 features sonnet 13 from the poetry collection American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (2018) by African American poet Terrance Hayes. (Note: The following excerpts of poems are all sourced from this collection.) Born in 1971 in Columbia, South Carolina, Hayes is a national award-winning poet and university professor. After receiving his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh in 1997, he taught in Japan, Ohio, and Louisiana before returning to the University of Pittsburgh where he worked for several years. In Pittsburgh, he gained local fame as co-director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics.
Hayes moved on to New York University to take up his current post of Professor of English. In 2017, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and now serves as an ex-officio member of the Academy’s Board of Directors. The divorced father of two children resides in New York City.
Hayes’ featured sonnet 13 is one of seventy freestyle sonnets, all bearing the same title and length of fourteen lines required for the poetic form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, the sonnets in this poetry collection are mostly political poems about life, love, and death of black men—haunted and hunted by violent racism.
In his 2018 interview for the Poets & Writers Magazine, Hayes tells interviewer Hanif Abdurraqib why he chose the sonnet: “How can I write a traditional love poem to someone or something I don’t deem worthy of my love? I just don’t know what other form would be able to hold this particular moment.”
He further expands on his poetic choice during his interview for The White Review Magazine in January 2019. In trying to express all the complications of love and politics, “I have to change my mind, because it’s a sonnet, because of the volta,” he tells interviewer Rachel Long. “Otherwise, it’s just a box. Something has to give. So whatever I go in with, I have to come out with something new.”
In sonnet 7, the poet alerts (lines 1/2//13/14):
I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison, Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame. […] Voltas of acoustics, instincts & metaphor. It is not enough To love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.
In the following eight sonnet, the poet pour[s] a pinch of serious poison and merciful panic into [the] river for assassins like James Earl Ray, Dylann Roof, and others named in the poem. On the volta (lines 11-14), he then affirms:
Love trumps power or blood to trump power Beauty trumps power or blood to trump power The names alive are like the names in the graves
In the featured thirteenth sonnet on my Poetry Corner July 2020, Hayes describes all the ways in which the black male is silenced and erased by violent racism.
The earth of my nigga eyes are assassinated. The deep well of my nigga throat is assassinated. The tender bells of my nigga testicles are gone. You assassinate the sound of our bullshit & blissfulness.
Hayes commentary on Trump’s rise to the presidency in sonnet 26 (lines 1-4) resounds loudly today:
America, you just wanted change is all, a return To the kind of awe experienced after beholding a reign Of gold. A leader whose metallic narcissism is a reflection Of your own…
He asks in sonnet 30 (lines 4-6):
Is this a mandate for whiteness, virility, sovereignty, Stupidity, an idiot’s threats & gangsta narcissisms threading Every shabby sentence his trumpet constructs?
“…I ain’t mad at you, / Assassin,” Hayes writes in sonnet 53 (lines 12-14). “It’s not the bad people who are brave / I fear, it’s the good people who are afraid.” (Emphasis mine)
To read the complete featured thirteenth sonnet, “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin,” and learn more about the work of the poet Terrance Hayes, go to my Poetry Corner July 2020.
drgeraldstein said:
A voice quite different than a Baldwin or MLK. It is striking when anyone downtrodden offers their still-strong words. Condolences to America on the loss of John Lewis and Reverend C.T. Vivian.
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Based on Hayes’ sonnet 12 about James Baldwin, I assume that Baldwin must have had a great impact in his life. Here are Hayes’ first four lines of sonnet 12:
Seven of the ten things I love in the face / Of James Baldwin concern the spiritual / Elasticity of his expressions. The sashay / Between left & right eyebrow, for example.
Our brother Lewis has led by word and deed. It’s our responsibility to carry on the struggle.
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derrickjknight said:
Powerful rage
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Speaking the truth with love.
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derrickjknight said:
So true.
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klmalcolm2014 said:
Beautiful.
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Kim, thanks for dropping by.
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Robert A. Vella said:
Powerful.
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Powerful, indeed, Robert.
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Sha'Tara said:
Poignant!
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Thanks for reading, Sha’Tara.
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Laleh Chini said:
Full of beautiful meanings.🌺
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Laleh, he’s a master at writing poetry.
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Laleh Chini said:
That’s amazing❤️
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Cyril, thanks for sharing my post with your readers. Much appreciated 🙂
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jilldennison said:
I typically run the other way from poetry, for I am very much a literalist, I don’t understand or get nuances or flowery references. Needless to say, I drove my literature teachers nuts in college! However the poetry of Mr. Hayes speaks clearly and speaks volumes, and even I in my poetry-challenged mind not only understood, but literally felt his pain. Thank you for sharing, Rosaliene.
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Jill, I’m glad that you could understand and connect with Hayes’ poetry. I have my late friend and poet Angela Consolo Mankiewicz (1944-2017) to thank for my newfound love of poetry. There’s still a lot of poetry that I find undecipherable.
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jilldennison said:
I’m glad to know I’m not alone in finding some poetry undecipherable! Others seem to find meanings that are hidden from my brain sometimes!
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cath said:
What a powerful voice. Thanks for introducing us to him.
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Cath, I’m so glad that you can appreciate Hayes’ work. He does have a powerful voice, indeed.
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Crystal Byers said:
I appreciate this introduction to Terrance Hayes. I’m taking a poetry class this summer and reading a large anthology of poetry with an obvious underrepresentation of black poets, which I mentioned to my professor. And he said, “We don’t have a way of knowing the race of the poet without looking outside of the book.” I promise you, if I researched all of the poets (heavily European) in that anthology, I would be right. I just don’t have that sort of time. Rant over. Thank you, Rosaliene!
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
How wonderful, Crystal! Enjoy your poetry class 🙂 When selecting American poets for my Poetry Corner, I look for diverse voices. Some turn out to be national award winning poets and even poet laureates. You can find a list of the American poets I’ve featured to date on my author’s website at
http://www.rosalienebacchus.com/writer/Archives_FeaturedPoets_UnitedStates.html
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Crystal Byers said:
Great! I love the diversity here, and I will check out the link. Thanks, Rosaliene!
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
You’re welcome, Crystal 🙂
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JoAnna said:
Raw, sad, powerful, and yet strangely beautiful.
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
I agree on all counts, JoAnna. He’s a master with words and imagery.
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Nancy Nelson said:
amazing work
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Thanks for dropping by, Nancy 🙂
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DutchIl said:
Thank you for sharing!… 🙂
Hope all is well in your world and all your tomorrows are filled with happiness…
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
So glad you dropped by, Dutch 🙂 I’m not doing so well managing my anxiety with the resurgence of COVID-19 here in Los Angeles County. But our situation could be much worse. I am grateful for that.
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DutchIl said:
Well, though you may have to make some adjustments, you have a lot of life to live, a dream to follow and you help many people so concentrate on that instead of the virus thingy… 🙂
With a glass of wine or perhaps a cup of tea, contemplate your tomorrows and all that needs to be done… “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do…” ( Pope John XXIII)… 🙂
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Thanks for that nudge, Dutch 🙂 I’m doing what I can to dispel the darkness.
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DutchIl said:
“If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right”.( Mary Kay Ash)… 🙂
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AnuRijo said:
Fully power packed thoughtfulness..amazing and outstanding as always..😊👍🏻
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Rosaliene Bacchus said:
Anu, so glad you’ve enjoyed Hayes’ work 🙂 He’s quite an accomplished poet!
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